How to make an icon quick and easy?

[Sceneshifter]

Hey guys,

With the new stacks stuff, I want to make a nice folder as a stack. I have a very nice picture I want it to 'show' as the folder, you know, like the last file you dowloaded looks nice and easy in the download stacks. Is there an easy way to quicly turn a jpg into an icon? I have photoshop if that helps...

Thanks!

 

[kuwisdelu]

Hey guys,

With the new stacks stuff, I want to make a nice folder as a stack. I have a very nice picture I want it to 'show' as the folder, you know, like the last file you dowloaded looks nice and easy in the download stacks. Is there an easy way to quicly turn a jpg into an icon? I have photoshop if that helps...

Thanks!

Unfortunately, it's not all that quick and easy, but possible and fairly straightforward once you get the hang of it.

Do you have the developer tools installed? If not, go get your installation DVD and install the big developer tools bundle under "Optional Installations." It's very big, but you customize it to not include the things you won't need. It has an "Icon Composer" program.

Use Photoshop or whatever to make a .png of your Icon (you need to save it as something that preserves the transparency of the background around your icon, so it's not just a big square block). It should be like 80x80 pixels I think, or a little bigger if you want lots of detail.

Now open up Icon Composer under the Developer Tools. You'll see four places to drag your picture into. Drag it in there for the four different icon sizes, allow them to be scaled, and then save this. It'll save as .icns, which isn't very useful unless it's an Application icon with a "Resources" folder. Now download some freeware called "Icns2Rsrc" or something similar (that's what I use) and use this to convert it to a .rsrc file.

Now go to Apple's page to see how you use "Get Info" to change icons.... Don't feel like explaining that. I think that should work. If not...well, it'll work with all other icons.

 

[kap91]

I think this is what you're looking for. There is a free program called Viou and it will let you use an image as an icon. Using the program there is an option that says "Drop a folder in that region to copy the icon picture and use it with hereunder actions." You drop the image you want here and the press the pict button. Then use the other option "Drop an item into this region to paste this icon" and that is the place you'll want to drop your folder or file into.

http://www.launaysoft.com/softwareInfo.php

 

[waterskier2007]

its not that hard at all. just open the icon in preview, go to edit>copy.
then right click the folder you want to change, and go to get info. then select the picture of it at the top



make sure you click the folder icon so that it is highlighted. then just click edit>paste and it will put the picture as the new folder icon, not matter how big the picture was. i just tested it with a picture the size of my wall paper and it worked fine

again...
open in preview and copy
View attachment 102700
get info of the folder u want to change
View attachment 102701
highlight the picture up top

click edit>paste
View attachment 102702
enjoy
View attachment 102703

 

[Sceneshifter]

Wicked nice, thank you all very much for the info! I used the freeware posted by kap and now I have a perfect icon with transparancy (looks very nice)

Thank you very much!

 

[kuwisdelu]

Wow, waterskier, I guess the Application I was trying to change the icon for was just really, really stubborn. I tried that the normal copy/paste method with a normal picture, a .icns, and a .rsrc file for the icon I wanted for it, but none of them worked. The icon in "Get Info" just refused to be highlighted and selected! I guess the Application really, really wanted it to be a read-only icon, even though I made sure to give myself read/write privileges for it... I don't know why it didn't work. What you said certainly worked for the test folder I just made, but it wouldn't work for this one application. I finally found its .icns file in a "Resource" folder and replaced it with my own...never had to do it that way before, but it's the only way that worked for me. It was very frustrating, as the normal methods have worked on everything else for me.

 

[waterskier2007]

Wow, waterskier, I guess the Application I was trying to change the icon for was just really, really stubborn. I tried that the normal copy/paste method with a normal picture, a .icns, and a .rsrc file for the icon I wanted for it, but none of them worked. The icon in "Get Info" just refused to be highlighted and selected! I guess the Application really, really wanted it to be a read-only icon, even though I made sure to give myself read/write privileges for it... I don't know why it didn't work. What you said certainly worked for the test folder I just made, but it wouldn't work for this one application. I finally found its .icns file in a "Resource" folder and replaced it with my own...never had to do it that way before, but it's the only way that worked for me. It was very frustrating, as the normal methods have worked on everything else for me.

hmmm i had never done it with an application but i just tested it with one and it worked. im glad u got something to work in the end though

 

[kuwisdelu]

hmmm i had never done it with an application but i just tested it with one and it worked. im glad u got something to work in the end though

Yeah, it works with every single other application icon I've tried it on except the one that I really wanted to change (my school's Cisco VPNClient had a terribly ugly icon before...). I still have no idea why. But if you ever need to do it with an application and it won't let you, try right-clicking and "Show Package Contents" and find the icon's file manually and replacing it there.